Halo 3 will let you mute anyone. Here’s how you do that right now

Muting players is one of the joys of Xbox Live. Here are your instructions.

Everyone is chattering about how Halo 3 will allow you to mute annoying players. I think this is a great feature; one of the reasons I only play Xbox Live games with people on my friends list is that I don't like putting up with the racist and overly talkative people who seem to gravitate towards whatever game I'm playing. Halo 3 won't have that problem, which is great. Of course, as Major Nelson points out, this is a feature you already have. Prepare for the instructions!

While you are playing in any Xbox 360 game, press the guide button, scroll down to the ‘Community’ section then click to the right and press A on the icon of the controller. That will bring up a list of people are you are currently playing with followed by others you have played with in recent games. (we call this the recent players list.) Then scroll down to the gamertag who is bothering you with their yammering and press A to get to their profile… scroll to the bottom and click MUTE. Bam… the player is now muted in your current game session. You can now continue your game in peace. (You can always go through the same steps to unmute a player.)

Oh, and while you’re at select SUBMIT
PLAYER REVIEW (two clicks up from MUTE) and be sure to select
AVOID THIS PLAYER (and select why.) This will tell Xbox Live that you
would prefer not to play with this person in ANY GAME and our system
will do its best to NOT match you up again with that person.

So there have it. A feature in Halo 3 that you (sort of) already have today.

I had thought this was common knowledge, but I guess it's worth pointing out again. Halo 3 won't offer anything new in the mute feature, but at least it makes the process much eaiser, and that's still a good thing. The fewer people I have to listen to on Xbox Live, the better for my sanity.